Serena Williams and Rileah Vanderbilt take their clothes off, shake their moneymakers and play some virtual tennis in a new ad for 2K Sports' Top Spin 4 that gives a whole new meaning to "women's doubles."

Serena Williams is "The World's Sexiest Tennis Player." Rileah Vanderbilt is "The World's Sexiest Tennis Gamer." And now, because somebody in marketing thought it would be a good idea, we get to watch them dress up in outfits that would make Emma Frost blush, shake their junk in close-up and play Top Spin 4 in slow-motion while a hard-driving techno-beat, punctuated by their grunts and groans, pounds in the background. Fishnet stockings, stiletto heels, hi-cuts, lo-cuts and a pretty extreme zoom-in on sweaty boobs wrapped in faux leather are all on display and no, I am not making any of this up.

I don't even know where to begin. On one hand, I'm a guy and as a guy I have a certain appreciation for ladies who don't mind frolicking in their skivvies. On the other hand, what is wrong with you, 2K? I know you're not responsible for leading the industry's charge to legitimacy and maybe it's all tongue-in-cheek and sure, nobody gets stabbed or shot or blown up, but come on! This is not helping!

And how is this supposed to sell videogames, anyway? All I can think about is that Serena Williams looks like she could crack walnuts with her butt.

UPDATE: 2K Sports is putting some space between itself and the ad, claiming that it really had nothing at all to do with it. "As part of the process for creating marketing campaigns to support our titles, we pursue a variety of creative avenues," the company told Joystiq. "This video is not part of the title's final marketing campaign and its distribution was unauthorized."

Not the -worst- ad I've ever seen, but thanks to EA, the bar for -that- isn't particularly high to begin with.

As far as sex appeal goes, sex has been used to sell everything from cars to plane tickets to men's shaving equipment, so while it's not particularly helping the games industry, it's not hurting it either. And honestly, I'd rather see "Scantily clad women play this game," than, "Your mom will hate it."

On that note, why hasn't anyone tried to turn EA's marketing around and advert a family game with "Moms love it!" But I digress, Really this isn't anything to get worked up about, it's bland uninteresting false sex appeal used to try and garner interest in a product that has nothing to do with sex, like the thousands of other products marketing departments try to spruce up by having a scantily clad woman display it.

So to compensate for your lack of innovation, you make an advertisement featuring two women in scantily clad clothing swinging around a stick with a glowing ball on it? What the hell 2K? This is just down right immature...and the sad part is that it probably would have worked if they had any idea what the term sexy means.

All I can think about is that Serena Williams looks like she could crack walnuts with her butt.

I immediately lost interest in watching it. Firstly, I'm not an ass man (although butts can be cute in a great pair of pants, I just don't like them in my face). And secondly, there are hotter tennis players out there. Much hotter. Thirdly, shouldn't sex commercials be the sole dominion of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (also known as "boing")?

Sex is used to sell virtually everything; I think books are the only product category I've never seen a woman's body used to make more enticing. I fail to see what is particularly upsetting about game publishers doing the same.Not that it isn't unfortunate that this is such an effective way of marketing products (at least presumably), but that isn't really the company's fault, is it?

That shot at 51 seconds of Serena serving is probably the most unappealing thing I've ever seen, especially after they open the damn commercial claiming she is the sexiest tennis player! If they were going to take this route of using sex to sell a tennis game, they could have at least used someone sexy...